The Importance of being Earnest

‘The Importance of being Earnest’ has been described as a trivial comedy for serious people, and is Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde’s most famous play. In 1900, Wilde died in Paris at the early age of 46, only five years after writing this play.

This wonderful production is being presented by the Black Swan State Theatre Company at the Heath Ledger Theatre, which is situated within the State Theatre Centre of WA, 174 William Street, North Perth. The performance is 2 hours and 30 minutes, and can be seen nightly at 7.30 pm until Thursday 28^th March. There are also school matinees.

The curtains open to reveal an empty, box-like stage, surrounded with black net. Around the periphery at floor level were numerous theatrical brass limelights, immediately giving the scene a genuine Victorian atmosphere (lighting design Trent Suidgeest). The props and furniture were all coloured deep indigo. A partition of Florence Broadhurst style, teal coloured wallpaper with a gold bird design, was lowered into the centre of the stage.
This is the London West End home of Algernon Moncrieff.

         The senile old manservant, Lane (Michael Loney), totters into the drawing room pushing a trolley of crockery and sandwiches. His employer, the alluring, self-centred but lazy Algy (Scott Sheridan) is awaiting the arrival of his ancient aunt, Lady Bracknell (Jenny Davis). Lane has prepared a large plate of cucumber sandwiches, the Lady’s favourite, but Algy immediately tucks-in, completely unconcerned about saving any for his aunt.

        Downtrodden Lane then shows Algy’s best friend, young Jack Worthing into the room. Sprucely dressed Jack (Stuart Halusz), an apparently respectable protagonist, states that he is going to visit his brother Ernest in Shropshire. He is in fact he going to see his teenage ward, the self-assured Cecily Cardew (Adriane Daff). When the opportunistic Algy discovers this fabrication, in a succinct declaration, he admits to having a fictitious friend, ‘Bunbury’, who is used to hide a multitude of sins.

         Eventually Lady Bracknell and the ravishing, but pompous Gwendolen (Rebecca Davis) arrive. Whilst alone, Jack and Gwendolen at long last become engaged. However, Lady Bracknell, domineering as ever, does not consider Jack a ‘suitable person’ for her sophisticated daughter and declares the ‘tie’ null and void. 

        Jack gives Gwendolen the address of his country manor so that she can visit him. Quietly, Algy also notes down the address and decides to pay a ‘surprise’ visit. It is here that Algy meet’s Jack’s ward, Cecily, who is supervised by her frumpy old tutor, Miss Prism (Pauline Whyman). Prism is a strict, pedantic and miserable old dear - that is until she sees the Rev. Dr Chasuble (Pete Rowsthorn), the elderly local minister. When they meet they are like romantic, nubile teenagers, quivering and giggling at each other’s every move.

        Will romance ever come true for any of the couples?

My immediate reaction to seeing ‘Earnest’ on the Black Swan’s programme for the year was ‘oh no, not again!’ This play seems to keep returning, with the quality ranging from dire to rib tickling. I almost turned down the invitation but am so glad now that I did not. ‘Earnest’ has often been described as the greatest comedy in the English language, and again I thought more advertising hype, however, after seeing this version by Black Swan State Theatre I think it may well be. There were several laughs per minute, well in excess of most of previous productions.

The success of this production lies in the superb cast who really knew their richly defined characters, and so achieved an amazing depth to their performances. The director, Kate Cherry and her assistant Damon Lockwood have given a new life to this very old play. Yes, it is a comedy but the acting was relatively straight, with subtle hints at the humour shown in the body movements (Lisa Scott-Murphy), the facial expressions and the vocal delivery. The tongue in cheek delivery worked perfectly.

The whole cast almost ran around the set. The energy flowed into the humour. Some wonderful performances from an exuberant cast.

The directors and Jenny Davis have decided to play down the most famous phrase of the play ‘A handbag!’ This was delivered in a standard sentence, but Jenny then went on to skilfully add a new profundity to many other topics in her dialogue, lines that have been ignored and allowed to slip by in the past.

The sets (designer Alicia Clements) were minimalistic, and whilst attractive I felt them a little uninspired. Some of the recent community theatre sets left them for dead. The garden scene was bright and effective but simple. Then the luxury of the final interior scene had a magnificent set of chandeliers and white furniture, but again too minimalistic.

Ash Gibson Greig’s music was written with the bouncy comedic style employed by Ron Goodwin for Margaret Rutherford’s ‘Miss Marple’ films, this approach was particularly effective with Merriman’s galloping entrances.

The costumes (Lynn Ferguson) were stunning. The gowns ranged from the virginal white dress of Cecily to the perfectly tailored, but loudly coloured outfits of Gwendolen. The men’s suits were mainly high cut, curved lapels on Italian styled jackets, down to the loud and eye shocking tweeds of Algy. The finishing touches of Susi Rigg’s millinery, Alicia Morahyde’s parasols and Virginia Hawdon’s wigs made the vision striking.

There were some tricky pieces of dialogue, but the entire cast had perfect stiff-upper-lip, accents (coach Julia Moody) with Michael Loney having a Dorset twang for Merriman. Michael had to play two butlers, but gave very different performances for both.

I expected the same old thing, but was very pleasantly surprised by the wonderful pace, tremendous humour and the superb performances. Seen this play before? Then treat yourself and see it again.